Dental Sleep Medicine Insider May 2016 | Page 3

Jason Tierney Editor-in-chief IN BED WITH THE EDITOR You want to treat more OSA pa- The Dental Sleep Medicine Insider [email protected] 314-882-7746 Stop by & say “HI” at Booth 100 at this year’s AADSM Meeting. tients and grow your practice but you don’t know where to find them. Are you screening your existing patients. Yes, your existing patients. You know, the ones that are in your lobby right now. Just a reminder that 20% have OSA and it’s likely that no one has ever discussed sleep with them. How many patients will you see today? How many will you screen? You’re screening all of your patients but too many of them opt not to proceed with a sleep test. That’s a problem. Are you sending them all for PSG’s or have you established a streamlined, convenient HST protocol in your practice? Is your team equipped with a compelling script to ensure your patients understand the seriousness of OSA and the importance of completing the test now? It’s a game-changer. Having trouble getting Letters of Medical Necessity signed by your patients’ physicians? Call them. Schedule time to visit their offices. It’s highly likely that you know more about sleep than they do. But you’re not visiting their offices to flex your intellectual muscles. You’re visiting them to establish a relationship, potentially a referral relationship that will be beneficial to your patients and your practice. The practices that treat the most OSA patients reached that point through networking. Get out there. Speak at health fairs, A.W.A.K.E. meetings. Schedule lunch & learns with area physicians. Don’t be a recluse. You thought you just needed help with billing because you can “drop in snore guards all day.” You were wrong. Well, you were partially right. You do need help with billing. You wouldn’t try to fly a plane yourself or install new plumbing throughout your entire house. Being a plumber or a pilot requires training & while you’re a sharp individual, you realize that it’s more sensible to pay an expert to have it done properly so you can embark on other tasks. So why, oh why, are you trying to manage your own medical billing??? Contract with a 3rd party biller. You need systems for screening, testing, and treating and billing. Without them, you will flounder. You will fail. You are not a failure. Dental Sleep Medicine is rife with complexities and moving parts. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Seek help to implement these systems. Change lives. Grow your practice. Make it happen. Today. p.s. Stop by & say “HI” at Booth 100 at this year’s AADSM Meeting. Looking forward to meeting you.... Seek help to implement these systems. Change lives. Grow your practice. Make it happen. Today.